1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a sealing device for interconnecting an electrical meter and a junction box or meter socket such that unauthorized separation of the two can be readily detected.
2. Description of Related Art
FIG. 7 of the drawing illustrates a conventional metallic sealing means to prevent the reading on the electrical meter from being tampered with by an unauthorized person. The electrical meter is sealed in a transparent enclosure 93 and has a radially outwardly extending base which is seated upon a rim or flange of a meter socket 94. The metallic sealing means includes a discontinuous outer ring 80 with a gap 81 defined between two distal ends thereof and a slot 82 defined in a periphery thereof. After the electrical meter is sealed in the transparent enclosure 93 an inner ring 90 having a radially outwardly extending tongue 92 is mounted to interconnect the base and the meter socket 94. Thereafter, the outer ring 80 is concentrically mounted around the inner ring 90 in a manner that the tongue 92 passes through the slot 82. Finally, a wire is passed through an aperture 91 defined in the tongue 92 and the ends of the wire are interconnected by a metallic seal 95 which is too large to pass through the slot 82.
A shortcoming of the above-mentioned sealing means is that one may enlarge the width of the slot 82 by sharp tools until it allows the metallic seal 95 to pass therethrough, which means that the outer ring 80, the inner ring 90 and the enclosure 93 are now removable and one may reduce the number of the reading on the electrical meter to achieve the purpose of reducing the amount to be paid for electricity consumption. Afterwards, one may reassemble the parts and hammer the area surrounding the slot 82 to a flat manner. As a result, the electricity controlling authority cannot take any legal action without the evidence of breakage of the metallic seal although there are signs of disturbance around the slot 82.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,146,258 to Roman Andruchiw discloses a sealing device for an electrical meter in which a fragile outer band and an inner band are used such that unauthorized tampering with the electrical meter can be readily detected.
The present invention provides an improved design in this regard.